Couples Therapy

Relationships fulfill needs for companionship, trust, understanding, and sexual intimacy and offer a unique opportunity to grow and learn about ourselves.  They also inevitably involve difficulties and conflict.  When conflict becomes entrenched, however, this can drain relationships of their pleasure, making it difficult to turn toward them as a refuge.  Over time this can lead to feelings of resentment, rage, fear, despair, and detachment.  Therapy can help couples understand and resolve cycles of conflict, heal feelings of resentment and betrayal, improve communication, develop new ways of responding to each other, and increase feelings of connection and intimacy.

In couple therapy my style is interactive, compassionate, and fair.  I work to help you create the space to think about and understand what's going on for you as a couple and to express feelings which may be difficult to share.  Together, we'll focus on moment-to-moment interactions to understand patterns of communication and intimacy, as well as your shared and individual histories.  Becoming thoughtful about your experiences in therapy can help identify and unfold patterns that bind you, including underlying aspects that may be out of your awareness, such as fears, hopes, beliefs, or expectations. 

While conflict may feel insurmountable, the process of attending to it in therapy can render it meaningful.  Understanding and working through conflict can reveal the concerns, feelings, and desires that matter most to you and your partner in a way that leads to greater empathy, understanding, and intimacy.

If you have questions or would like to schedule a consultation please contact me.

      Areas of Expertise

Communication
Emotional intimacy
Sexuality & sexual intimacy
Commitment
Infidelity and affairs
Parenthood & pregnancy
Cross-cultural issues
Interfaith issues
In-law relationships
Separation or divorce

I also work with
non-romantic dyads including: roommates, parents and adult children, siblings, friends, and co-workers.